In the News

April 3, 2012 — The Tennessee House on Thursday voted 72-24 to pass a bill (HB 3808) that would require doctors who provide abortion care to have hospital admitting privileges in the county where they perform the procedure or in an adjacent county, the AP/Elizabethan Star reports (AP/Elizabethan Star, 3/30).

House Democratic Caucus Chair Mike Turner noted that no other medical procedure is subject to similar restrictions for physicians.

Other critics of the bill also questioned why its supporters are singling out abortion for new regulations. "I think [the bill is] intended to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to place another requirement on a physician that makes it more difficult for [women] to seek out the services that they want that are legal in the state of Tennessee," state Rep. Gary Odom (D) said.

Hill recently dropped a controversial provision that would have made public the names of abortion providers, as well as demographic information about women who obtain the procedure (AP/Elizabethan Star, 3/30).

Video Round Up

An Interview with Justice Ginsburg on the State of Abortion Access

In a rare interview, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg tells MSNBC's Irin Carmon it is a "crying shame" that state abortion restrictions are making the procedure increasingly "[i]naccessible" to many low-income women. Watch the video

Datapoints

A Look at Abortion Coverage in the ACA's Marketplace Plans, Repro Health Report Card, More

This week's charts depict why abortion coverage is unavailable in many states' ACA marketplace plans for 2015. We also feature a national reproductive health report card and an interactive look at abortion restrictions in Missouri. Read more

At A Glance

"[Roe v. Wade] protects a woman's freedom to make her own choices about her body and her health, and reaffirms a fundamental American value: that government should not intrude in our most private and personal family matters."

— President Obama, commemorating the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Read more